Why do you suppose that a self-described liberal in the United States may be a conservative in the UK?

Because the "left" in the States is really centrist, these days. The right wing is far right wing. Plus, once people have something, like health care, as in Britain, they won't give it up. Here in Illinois, we were the first state to offer health insurance to all children, regardless of family income. That is never going away. A woman ran the Republican ticket for governor recently, and wanted to get rid of that -- Oh the outrage! But what you say won't matter to conservatives. They'll usually just say Britain is a nanny state, and that what they do won't work in the States because the States is too big.

Politically-wise you may have a point. But I dare to say that, de facto, the US is less conservative than most(if not all) EU countries. Why I say that; well, very few would disagree with me when I say that THE MOST important hallmark of traditionalism and thus conservatism has always been - a stable nuclear family, the smallest social unit of human ordering and a basic principal unit of a functioning society. If you look at the statistics you'll see that such a stable family unit in the US is practically non-existent. In a country where 57% of marriages end up in divorce(5 per 1000 per year vs 1,8 per 1000 per year in the EU, with about the same marriage rate in the US and EU), where 42% of children are born out of wedlock, where teen pregnancies are the most common of all Western countries etc, to say such a country is conservative is foolish to say the least. Issues such as healthcare, the involvement of government in people's personal lives, taxes etc have always been secondary issues, today they have become the primary issues because conservatism that once existed and was based around a family as the foundation of society, exists no more. What more is there to say when we know that the divorce rate is even higher among self-admitting Republicans than Democrats. Lol.

I don't really understand politics in the UK, so I'm not one of those "ignorant" Americans you're talking about. I openly admit I don't know and truly don't care. The only thing I like about UK history and politics is the really old stuff, like the Tudor Dynasty and before that. The rest of it's a snooze fest. Quit acting like you're better than Americans, because you're not. EDIT: Okay, let me correct my answer then. Quit acting like you're better than OTHER Americans, because you're not. That's all.